A large metropolis in a hurry. That's the impression you get as you enter Casablanca. Along the wide boulevards lined with Art Deco buildings, the incessant comings and goings betray a sense of the city as a whole. an ever-expanding economic fabric. The old fishing port of Anfa, which gave birth to the city nicknamed the White City, has been forgotten. The modern Greater Casablanca continues to develop, with new economic zones and luxury housing complexes. The beautiful city, with its colonial charm immortalised in the 1942 film of the same name, has set out to emerge gently from cinematic fiction to embody its new role as the economic leader of North Africa.
And the metamorphosis is well under way for Greater Casablanca. Backed by its port, the second largest in the country after Tangiers, this metropolis of almost four million inhabitants is home to 12 % of the country's population and no less than 20 % of Moroccan GDP. Casablanca today represents: 44 % of Moroccan industrial production, 33 % of the country's industrial exports and 30 % of the Moroccan banking network.
In other words, the metropolis is at the centre of Morocco's virtually unclouded growth, even though the kingdom is going through a period of crisis. a particularly favourable period The economy is growing at a sustained rate of over 4 %, thanks to the agricultural sector and an increase of over 9 % in exports last year, with phosphates, agricultural and agro-industrial products boosting trade revenues.
A driving force
The country's macroeconomic performance has also been praised by the rating agencies. In February 2017, Moody's announced that it was upgrading Morocco's sovereign rating from stable to positive. Casablanca has taken advantage of this development to attract the attention of international donors and promote its development, while tackling social inequalities and youth unemployment in particular. The World Bank has just granted the city a €172 million "loan for results". It is based on a new model to support an integrated programme of reform and investment aimed at developing the city's overall capabilities: improving the urban environment, access to basic services and optimising the business environment.
" Casablanca's ambition is to consolidate its role as a driving force of the national economy. With regionalisation, the city will be concentrating its efforts on meeting the expectations of its citizens, who are demanding more efficient urban services. To enable it to fully assume its service mandate, it is vital to help strengthen the municipality's institutions and finances, and to reduce inequalities between neighbourhoods. ", explained Marie Françoise Marie-Nelly, the World Bank's Director of Operations for the Maghreb, on the occasion of the disbursement of the first tranche of the loan in March 2018.
An economic platform for foreign investment
The aid from the World Bank is part of the assistance provided to the Greater Casablanca Development Plan (PDGC) launched in 2015. This vast strategy is designed to improve both living conditions and the city's competitiveness, particularly with regard to foreign investors, who are paying close attention to the city's development. It should be noted that the city is home to the country's official stock market, in other words Casablanca Stock Exchangeand that 33 % of its capitalisation of 51 billion euros is held by foreign investors.
Casablanca is an increasingly attractive destination for investment flows, not least because it is the region's leading multimodal hub, through which over 50 % of foreign trade of the country. The city also has over 1,400,000 m2 of office space and a pool of human resources fuelled by an unrivalled education offering with around ten university institutes, seven higher education centres and some forty public schools.
There are three main areas that attract investors: off-shoring, one of the city's best-known business areas, with a concentration of many French companies including Casa Near Shore, a 300,000 m2 which is now home to around a hundred companies. But the aerospace and automotive industries have also found Casablanca to be an ideal destination, backed by a fast-growing R&D centre. As a result, the Nouaceur district has become a hub for the aeronautical industry, with two specific zones located close to Mohammed V airport and its maintenance sites: the Aéropôle, which provides support for companies specialising in aeronautics, and Midparc Free Zone, a 126-hectare free zone that has been operational since 2013 and is home to companies such as Bombardier, Eaton, NSE Aero Maroc, Innovelec, AHG, Goam, Alca, Stelia, Hexcel and Tecalemit.
Last but not least, Casablanca also has a clear ambition to become a national digital centre. In 2008, N+One Datacenters, a local company specialising in networks, hosting, facilities management and the cloud, opened a 5,000 m2 in Casablanca. Since last year, this site has been home to CASIX, Morocco's first neutral Internet exchange point, enabling multiple Internet service providers to interconnect their networks and strengthen connectivity nationwide. Last October, in response to growing demand for outsourced cloud and data storage services, N+One opened a second one-hectare site 80 km from Casablanca, and this year is preparing to open a third on the Kenitra-Casablanca route.
Greater Casablanca
The city, which has included in its agenda the annual Smart City Expo event - the meeting place for experts and companies specialising in urban development - intends to set an example. The Greater Casablanca Development Plan is already a demonstration of innovative urban policies These include the landscaping of the city's roads and motorways and the fight against shanty towns, which housed more than 100,000 households in 2004. Today, with the construction of new urban centres and the rehabilitation of outlying districts, more than 80,000 households have been rehoused. Casablanca is also in the process of developing the Parc de la Ligue des Nations to provide its residents with a 30-hectare green lung in the heart of the city.
Basic infrastructure has not been forgotten, with major works to improve the water, sewerage and electricity networks. To the east of Casablanca, an ambitious wastewater treatment system intercepts wastewater discharged directly into the sea and treats it before discharging it again two kilometres from the coast.
In terms of transport fluidity, the city is currently upgrading the 5,000 kilometres of roads in Casablanca. A second tramway line should be brought into service this year, while extensions and new lines are also planned. The city has also recently acquired a central traffic control centre equipped with the latest video surveillance and flow management technology.
These developments are adapted to the new tourist flows. Last year, Morocco exceeded the 11 million tourist mark for the first time, a third of whom were French. Along with Marrakech and Agadir, Casablanca is one of the top three most-visited cities. The city also intends to optimising the appeal of its architectural heritage To this end, it has undertaken the renovation of several sites, as well as continuing to develop the coastline, in particular the Aib Diba Corniche and the seafront promenade around the Hassan II mosque.
This will encourage the growth of the historic port district, opposite the old medina, which is positioning itself as the new major tourist hub, with the Casablanca Marina and Wessal Casablanca Port projects. The latter includes plans for the embarkation and disembarkation of cruise ships. Casablanca is thinking big in terms of both tourism and business.
